


Cordelette

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: The Mountains Are The Same [3]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Buckle Up Kids We're Going To The Feels Place, Furiosa gets a little bit drunk, Gen, In-universe implied blasphemy, Podfic Available, Pre-Canon, Puppy Piles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 11:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4390514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cordelette: A long loop of accessory cord used to tie into multiple anchor points.</p><p>   <i>Ace didn't know if the Boss realised. Realised that when you claimed a thing, it could lay claim on you in return, if it dared. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't want to miss anything from this weird series, I'd suggest subscribing on the series page, not to this story

Ace didn't know if the Boss realised. Realised that when you claimed a thing, it could lay claim on you in return, if it dared.

 

War Boys weren't supposed to claim things. Even their boots had been somebody's before and would be somebody else's after they died.

 

He watched her carefully - it seemed like he was always watching her, becoming attuned to her moods, learning when she was in the mood to hear some gossip or when she would rather have quiet from him. He learned the patterns of her stomach cramps and when her arm was bothering her, when she would be amused by the hijinks the boys got up to and when it was better for her not to know. He learned her body language for when trade negotiations were going well and when she wanted to be interrupted.

 

Six months after becoming her Ace, he felt like he was beginning to be what she needed from him.

 

She was standing in the Trade room of the Bullet Farm trade house, and Ace realised he'd never seen _this_ particular body language from her. The official Citadel trade had been concluded, but a few of the men had wanted her to try some kind of drink.The Boss never drank, that he knew— at least not the guzzoline flavoured rotgut the War Boys brewed. He wouldn't have expected her to drink in a room full of strangers, but she'd smelled the bottle and nodded for a glass.

 

There were eleven men in the room with her; five from the Bullet Farm, three from Gastown and three independent traders from further out settlements. Some of the most powerful and connected men in the region. These were not safe men. This was not a safe place. And yet she was drinking from the glass of light orange alcohol, her spine losing its usual steel; and in his opinion the traders who'd offered it to her stood a little too close, smiled a little too wide—

 

"Boss alright?" Guzzer asked, coming up to Ace's vantage point. The old lancer looked into the room for a few moments and frowned. "She drinking?"

 

"I want to get her out of there." He just couldn't think of a reason that would get her immediate response without also getting the traders wanting to involve themselves.

 

"Well?" Guzzer said, stepping into the room. Ace shrugged and joined him, coming up to flank their Imperator.

 

"Boss, got something you need to see," Ace said into her ear. She smelled of fruit— not something he got to taste more than once a year, but instantly recognisable even with the strong haze of alcohol.  

 

"Yeah?" she swayed a little, steadied herself by planting an elbow against his chest.

 

"Yeah, something don’t add up on the manifest," Guzzer said, giving a dark glare at the traders, and between the two them they guided her out of the room without too much of a spectacle. The traders looked annoyed, but that could be dealt with in the morning. She’d kept hold of her glass. An _actual glass_ , made out of clear and sparkling material, a ridiculous luxury by any measure. _What had the other men been thinking letting her out of the room with it?_ The Ace frowned and reminded himself to check the manifests before they set off.

 

Once out of the room they let her walk on her own, which she seemed to be doing fine apart from the sense that it was mostly her own momentum keeping her going. The three of them went to the Citadel sector of the trade house and Guzzer put the heavy bar on the door behind them.

 

"Thanks," the Boss said, not slurring but slow and deliberate. She was leaning into Ace's side and fumbling at the buckles of her arm, hindered by the fact that she was still holding half a glass of the fruity liquor.

 

The way Boss watched them, with eyes strange, made even those in the far corners of the room sit up straight.

 

“Hey what’s up?” Sprocket asked for those in the room. A couple crew automatically slid forward to help their Imperator with her arm as Ace braced her up and she quirked her lips at them in a mirage of a smile. They settled her arm carefully on an out-of-the-way table (an actual table, they really spared no expense with their lodging, there was even _light_ ) and turned back to her to see if she needed anything else.  

 

Furiosa was looking down at the amber liquid as she tilted the cup back and forth, catching the flickery electric glimmers. The smile as she lifted the cup and inhaled deeply struck them all like freak lightning and the Ace caught a couple shifting with it, even more with the inadvertent sound she let out. He wondered if this decadence reminded her of her blessed time in the Vault, the luxuries that Immortan Joe was able to provide her before she fell. They all treasured whatever time they’d had in the presence of their Redeemer, and to have had that nearly daily and then been rejected… Ace didn’t know how she’d dealt. He found he couldn’t be too surprised at her decision to get pissed tonight if the liquor brought her such pleasant memories.

 

She spun towards him and Ace was taken aback by her speed, and by the glass held two inches from his eyes, “Ace, look at this, you’re a good judge,” she nodded at the thought as if to make sure he knew, “do you think there’s still enough?”

 

“Enough?” he echoed, confused. _The drink certainly looked shiny but what does she want it to be enough for?_

 

“For everyone,” she said, “to have a taste.”

 

That just confused him more and she frowned at him, a bit larger than this all warranted, and tries to press the glass to his lips and tilt. The liquid in the cup was low enough to not even touch his mouth with his height difference, and Boss huffed and ordered him, “Kneel.”

 

Ace knelt, some combination of habit-and-wish rendering the action instant despite the oddness of the situation.

 

Furiosa hummed at him, drink-loosened, and looked at him intently as she guided the cup again to his mouth, stump bracing the other side, letting the alcohol tease at his mouth sweetly. It—

 

_On certain days when the winds blow just right, if you’re in the middle of one of the Citadel’s walkways or riding from one to another on a line, on those days there are pockets where the air smelled fruity and rich and densely alive, the scent coming off of the terraces and greenhouses at the top. The smell would be an impression of a place that you could only imagine experiencing, there and gone like a nightfever dream._

 

—The taste of the alcohol was like that impression condensed, bright and smooth and crisp. Ace found himself slumping back onto his heels, looking up at the Imperator, _his_ Imperator, as she blessed him with this experience and he found her expression… kind. It was an expression they’d usually allowed themselves to give only to their War Pups and usually only to the ones they’ve been assigned personally. It struck the Ace much like the alcohol did.

 

“It was a good decision making you my second,” she told him, and then moved on to Guzzer, lingering by.

 

When his Imperator looked at him encouragingly, Guzzer fell to his knees like his strings were cut, and she smiled at him like she had at Ace, told him his on-the-go blackthumb work had been noticed last run, and encouraged him to take a sip too. The poor high lancer looked like he didn’t know what he was confused by more, and looked to the Ace for guidance.

 

Ace could only shake his head, still at a loss, and Guzzer took a sip almost despite himself. He looked even more poleaxed after.

 

They watched as their Imperator moved around the room, the cascade of crew stumbling upright from whatever position they’d been in, to attend her, even those War Boys that were short enough kneeling because, the Ace thought, _how could they not?_ He still wasn't sure if his legs worked, from the shock, as Furiosa spoke with all nineteen guys and told them—

 

_I see you. I know your name. I see what you do. You are part of this._

_—told them,_ Ace realized with crescendoing shock, _Thank you._

 

Guzzer had risen shakily from his kneel as their Imperator moved on from him and then flopped down next to the Ace, legs bent in front of him, elbows to his knees, whites showing all around the rim of his crazed-looking eyes, “She’s _thanking_ us.”

 

There was outrage and disbelief warring with the warmth in his voice, as they watch her arrive at the last crew, Koch, their newest, a blocky War Boy who was willing to try things different but still needed some instruction on how they ran things. The cup looked empty, but he kneels anyway, and looked at her already as if she’d done enough. Their Boss just glanced at the cup and ran her finger around it firmly; it came away wet, and she painted his mouth with it.

 

The room inhaled as one.

 

And then she gave a nod as if it was all nothing, weaved a little unsteadily, and all but purposefully crashed into the corner where many of them had congregated. They had been taking the chance, away from the Citadel and from those who might scoff, to pile into each other like they’d once did as War Pups.

 

They all simultaneously glanced at the mattress provided for their Imperator at the other end of the room and then glanced back at her, and she looked at them all as if they were driving unnecessarily slow. She hitched her ankle around Koch’s calf and hooked him down, and curled into him with a huff.

 

“You’d think everyone forgot how to sleep,” she muttered with a slight slur as her breaths slowed, eyes narrowed in near-sleep, and glared at them all in challenge.

 

It was nice to be warm and to be all cuddled up, they’ve all fond memories of when they were small and they could curl into each other, keep each other warm in the damp, chilly sleeping alcoves in the caves beneath the Citadel. Once a War Boy reached their majority, he was supposed to face the night alone. Expected to be strong enough to bear it and brave enough to not say a word. Softness was frowned on once your grease is earned. If it wasn’t a touch that would establish your position and place, your status or your peers, it needed to be hidden.

 

They’ve never expected their Imperator to provide a hiding place. They’ve never expected—

 

_In their bones, War Boys understand reverence. They understand from the moment of birth when they are taken from the Organic Mechanic’s ledges and presented to the Altar of Wheels, when the names of the remembered Witnessed are spoken into a small ear, and the story of He Who Has Saved Them is told._

_As their bones grow, the stories and names are repeated to make their foundation strong; they know in their organic axles that Immortan Joe is their Redeemer, and his Imperators are uncountably blessed, a holy court._

_When they Commune with the Imperators who’ve chosen them for crew, they sip the offered rotgut and murmur thanks._

_“My arm will lance our enemies, Imperator.”_

_“I will drive them upended, Imperator.”_

_“I will honor you. Imperator.”_

 

—And all these other Imperators that Ace has ever worked under, looked at their thanks like it was to be expected, dismissive and distant. Never have the War Boys been thanked in return. Let alone been given something so obviously treasured by the Imperator. Never have they met an Imperator so willing to be so accessible and unguarded.

 

“I don’t _understand_ ,” Guzzer grumbled again. Ace shared a look with Sprocket, who had a similar expression. They watched together as crew piled in around their Boss and Koch; the younger ones first, who’ve never been on any crew but theirs. The most experienced ones looked much like Guzzer, looked like Ace, like Sprocket— shell-shocked, edging closer with hesitance.

 

These older crew took up positions around the border, weaved themselves only lightly into the tangle of limbs or simply sitting up by the mass of bodies, eyeing each other warily. Watching each other process their individual levels of disbelief and whether or not they should stop this.

 

The pile looked warm.

 

They watched as the sweats of the nightfevers were eased by bodies coming awake and pressing close, watched as one Boy’s night terrors would shake a whole area of War Boys awake and how there’d be sleepy soothings until they’d together fallen back asleep, watched as each of them clutched at the opportunity.

 

The time felt stolen. Thieved. They took turns falling asleep watching the pile and it only occurred to them as they sun rose that they’d shifted from watching the bodies with mild distrust to doing what they could to guard their sleep.

 

Imperators had their own quarters high up in the Citadel, where it wasn't so cold and damp at night. They had blankets. It had never occurred to any of the War Boys that one of their leaders might _want_ to sleep like this. They had certainly not expected their unshakeable Imperator to take comfort from the close press of bodies, nor for War Boys to wake up looking as if they’ve gotten more sleep than they could remember receiving in years.

 

It was a lot to think about.


	2. Chapter 2

Ace watched their Imperator wake up disorientated, holding her head. Unlike the others, she didn’t dive back to more stolen sleep but looked around herself confused. She blinked at the Ace and he just quirked his mouth at her, shrugging. Furiosa nodded and started working herself out of the pile.

 

“I should finish the trades with last night’s group, before their hangovers leave them.”

 

 _Not one word of denial, their Imperator_ , Ace thought. He watched her from his place sitting by the wall as she affixed her arm and then rummaged with both hands in their stores until she fetched a canteen of aqua-cola. He was not quite certain he was supposed to watch this, still felt awkward from the unsettling kindnesses of last night. She pressed the canteen to her eyes for a long moment and then drank.

 

“I can guard this lot while you finish.” Ace suggested. “Would an hour be enough time before I kick ‘em awake and stir up the whole camp?”

 

She hummed consideringly looking at the sleeping pile, and then nodded as she left, glass in hand, “I remember Guzzer mentioning something about the cargo lists, follow up on that on your end.”

 

The Ace knew that she would be following up on her end as well, with the festy traders themselves. He went and poked awake Kompass and Morsov from the middle of the pile, and told them to follow as backup. Boss might want them to sleep more but those two have had plenty.

 

It was only half an hour later that Kompass came back and started waking up and whispering to the others in some distress. Ace was about ready to charge out the door when he’d heard snatches of what was agitating them.

 

“She’s not getting _any_? Not even for herself? I thought she brought some of her own goods to trade.”

“Trading it all for gear for the Rig, bits of metal and cable and suchlike.”

“But she was so—”

“I _know_.”

“Hey I brought something to trade, d’you think it might be enough to, maybe, get her some?”

“Let's have us a look. I brought something too.”

 

They began waking others. Ace was staying out of it. Reminding the Boss of her time in the Vault always made her distant and clipped, as Ace would be too if he’d had the time and attention and luxuries of the Immortan lavished on him to have it all snatched away. But the boys seemed so enthusiastic about getting her a gift that he’d decided to shut up about it for once.

 

He suspected it would be to his eventual regret.

 

  
Ace ended up ambling along behind the group that’d finally assembled to approach the trader, who eyed their stuff and went to rummage in a bag.

 

The bottle was tiny and round, made of thick glass, with a cap with a little glass rod. On the side it said in faded letters 'Quick dry'. What it might once have contained was a mystery, but what it contained now was worth all the sundry little items the crew had brought along to trade for themselves.

 

"Best I can do. Enough for a taste, anyway," the trader said.

 

Kompass touched the little bottle, glanced back at Ace. Ace sighed and nodded, because yeah, if they were going to do this, this was probably the best deal they were going to get. They weren't as skillful or experienced at this as the Boss. Now it was known they wanted it, wanted it enough to offer all their treasures, the other trader who had some of the liquor wasn't going to be any cheaper.

 

"We'll do it," the younger War Boy said, and the trader nodded and swept their offerings into a bag - half a beautifully painted cup from before time, a carefully stitched belt pocket, a small set of bone needles, a little round mirror that folded into a case, several little pots of amber plastic with caps that required a special grip to open, and other such salvaged things.

 

Then the trader uncapped the little bottle and offered them a sniff, and Ace almost backed away. The experience yesterday had been so… he still didn't have words for it, didn't understand. He wasn't sure he was ready to have that again.

 

"Smell it. Don't want ya coming back claiming it wasn't the good stuff," the trader insisted.  

 

Kompass leaned in and sniffed carefully, and from his expression Ace knew it was the same liquor. Not like they were likely to ever forget.

 

“Yeah,” he nodded, voice not entirely steady, “yeah that’s it.”

 

The little bottle was recapped quickly and offered to the young lancer, who’d held it carefully in both his large hands, the bottle seeming impossibly tiny.

 

He offered it first to the War Boy who’d had the idea, but they seemed intimidated by it, offered it to the one who’d donated the largest stash but he’d simply denied he participated. Kompass wheezed out a sigh and glared at them all from under his brows.

 

There’s perhaps an excessive amount of crew lingering where their Boss was exchanging last words with her chagrined-looking counterpart from the Bullet Farm, who’d glanced at the crowd and gave a considering hum, and left, causing their Imperator to glance around as well.

 

Kompass looked down at his cupped palms as if taking courage and moved forward. She squared her shoulders to him and the stocky War Boy pulled up short.

 

“Boss, we,” he shifted his weight from left foot to right, and closed up his hands a little. “You seemed… that is, we thought, that.”

 

He opened his palms carefully so she could see.

 

“We pooled together what we had, it’s not much,” fingers closing a bit, uncertain, the words rushing out quick, “but last night when you gave us yours— ah, well, we wanted to give you back…”

 

Kompass trailed off. The bottle was obviously less than what she’d had in her glass last night. He closed his mouth on his words and glanced at the dirt.

 

Furiosa looked at him for a long tense moment. Ace saw her breathing go high and shallow and she reached out with her machine hand and lightly touched the back of one of Kompass’ palms, still curled around the bottle. It gently pressed until his fingers unfurled and she reached in and took the bottle out where she could look at it in the morning sun.

 

It shined like polished chrome. And still she said nothing.

 

Her mouth had a set to it that was determinedly, fixedly, casual. Ace’s gut sank. _It was too much,_ he knew it.

 

Her hand closed around the glass container as if locking it away. She swept the yard with her gaze looking carefully at each of her crew and Ace’s shoulders have never felt so tense. With the loyalties forged last night, with how much the crew scrambled for the gift and how they offered what little they had for barter, Ace didn’t know if he could watch her reject it.

 

Furiosa’s eyes were flat, distant, as she almost absently took in their eager, but slowly falling faces.

 

She looked down at her clenched fist, and a breath rolled through her, long and controlled.

 

And then their Imperator looked up and nodded at them, said, “I See it. Thank you.”

 

She sounded very formal, and before she'd finished speaking she'd started making her way towards the War Rig. As she passed by the War Boys who’d looked the most eager or the most devastated, she touched a shoulder or said some word, and they nodded back, looking calmed.

 

Her face, the set of her jaw, said that she increasingly wasn’t. Furiosa swung up into the cabin quickly and Ace thought he saw the beginning of tears and _shit_ , he whipped towards the crew ordering them into the last checks before they leave. Trying to give Furiosa some time alone.

 

("Is she pleased?" "I think so" he hears the whispers as they got busy with their tasks)

 

She was clearly devastated from having failed the Immortan, he just knew it, but she was trying to keep it together for the crew.

 

Eventually their Boss leaned back against the seat, and looked around, and Ace came forward cautiously, stomach still around his feet. It’d been his responsibility to pick crew and to train them up for her use; his responsibility to rein them in if they went too far. He should know better, _did_ know better. This was on his shoulders, not theirs. Ace climbed up to lean an arm against the bottom of the window, checking her expression. From what he could see, with her still staring ahead through the windshield, it was still blank.

 

“Eh, sorry Boss,” Ace apologized and she glanced at him, her eyes sharpened a little, “didn’t mean to hurt you; the crew, they.”

 

He has to pause as two of them swept by, chattering, blood up and excited to leave.

 

“They meant well,” Ace swallowed, knowing that after the comfort of last night her normal defenses must have been as lowered as theirs were and this must have blindsided her, what had been meant as a kind gesture landing like a punch.

 

In her shoes, Ace would hate them for it, if only a little.

 

She drew a breath, her chest hitching a little, "I know they meant well."

 

Which was not the same as forgiving them, but he understood it was the best she could do right now.


	3. Chapter 3

Years later, after the first fruit harvest of New Citadel, Janey comes in one day to show Furiosa a round, orangey-pink fruit cradled carefully in her wizened hands. It looks fuzzy and soft.

 

"Look Fury, the first ripe peach!"

 

They've never seen the old Vuvalini so excited, and Furiosa's face does something complicated, endeared and wistful. Janey talks excitedly about maybe making liquor if the harvest is large enough.

 

"--though I can scarcely remember what the peach liquor we used to make back in the day smelled like. Do you know? I suppose you were too young to have a real memory of it. You can't have tasted more than a sip from your Initiate Mother."

 

Furiosa smiles that complicated smile again, somewhere between happy and heartbroken, and digs through her storage chest.  Opens a small metal box and pulls out a tiny leather bundle.

 

Ace watches as she opens the drawstring on the leather, and taking out a little round glass bottle with a glass wand in the cap. It's still full of amber liquid.  

 

"I thought you hated us," he says quietly, before he can stop himself.

 

"It was the first…” she says, eyes fixed on the tiny bottle, “first time. In years - that I was sure.”

 

“Sure of what?”

 

"That the Green Place really existed. That I—” She swallows thickly, and her mouth twists around the words, “h-hadn't… made it up."

 

Janey makes a soft sound in her throat and does what Ace can't, is too stalled to do, like a broken down engine, which is go to Furiosa and wrap an arm around her.

 

"The crew gave me the,” Furiosa glances at Ace over Janey's shoulder, her eyes shiny. “—the memory. To carry with me," she chokes out the words, and Ace finally shakes himself into motion, steps in to bring his forehead to hers. It seems that despite the vast gulf of misunderstanding between them back then, they'd managed to do something right after all, even if they couldn't know how right.

 

"You never drank any."

 

And he is struck, _struck_ , by the understanding that back when she'd first tasted this sweet, golden memory of a home she'd all but forgotten about, she had wanted to share it with all of the crew.

  
"I smelled it.” Furiosa breathes out shakily, “W-when I needed to remember, in my senses in my heart in my _bones_ , where I came from."

**Author's Note:**

> [Bonehandledknife](http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/): when your posting schedule is less about planning and more about whenever the both of you can’t stand the size of the gdoc anymore and kicks chapters off to Ao3 out of sheer self-preservation
> 
> [Primarybufferpanel](http://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/): OMG IS THAT PART DONE CAN WE POST IT CAN WE CLEAR IT FROM THE DOC - ‘Yeah let me ~~get rid~~ post it so it’s gone’
> 
> —
> 
> Additional Notes:  
> * Guzzer was accidentally right  
> * [thoughts on how toxic masculinity makes for touch-starvation](http://bonehandledknife.tumblr.com/post/124724568595/last-snowfall-outforhealth-touch-isolation)  
> *how touch is [positively correlated to trust-building brain-hormones with quantifiable teamwork results](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?_r=0)  
> * [Touch Research Institute](https://www6.miami.edu/touch-research/Research.html): "Among the significant research findings are enhanced growth, diminished pain, decreased autoimmune problems, enhanced immune function, and enhanced alertness and performance."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Cordelette](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220722) by [freshbakedlady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshbakedlady/pseuds/freshbakedlady)




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